On the Skeptic's problem with faith, the Cynic's problem with Truth, and the logical problem with Boundless, Unlimited Mercy.

Sunday's readings and the related homily got me thinking again about St. Thomas, who doubted the Lord's Resurrection, until the Lord actually stood before him.

St. Thomas was not an evil man, by any stretch of the imagination. There are probably as many different kinds of saints as there are different kinds of the damned.

In my mind, at least, St. Thomas is the Patron Saint of Skepticism, and of Skeptics, like me. It was just his nature to question, and to probe. Once he found the Truth, he embraced it.

Pontius Pilot, while certainly no saint, is, in my mind, the patron of Cynicism. He didn't believe that there was any such thing as Truth. Which is why he asked the most ironic question in history: "What is truth?" when Truth Personified was standing right in front of him.

To my way of thinking, just as St. Thomas was not perfectly good, Pontius Pilot was not perfectly bad. He, like the soldiers who crucified Christ, was just doing his thankless and sometimes dangerous job. It was his thankless responsibility to keep the peace and maintain good social orderliness. Not entirely unlike the local cop in Ferguson Missouri.

So we have Skepticism, and we have Cynicism.

But we also have just plain Faith, of which the Lord said "Blessed are they who did not see and believed."

And we also have just plain Evil, the opposite of good.

[6] For he will render to every man according to his works: [7] to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; [8] but for those who are factious and do not obey the truth, but obey wickedness, there will be wrath and fury. [9] There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, --Rom 2:6-9

So Faith is largely what we hold and believe, and Evil is largely what we do, and what we are constantly tempted to do, that opposes faith.

For me, a living example of proper faith lived out and practiced to the fullest was exemplified in Mother Angelica, who was as heroic in her way, and in how she faced her unique tests of faith, as was John Paul the Great. Uncompromising; no deal-making; no backing down. Ferociously defending the true faith, especially regarding Jesus in the Eucharist, against all comers, including even princes of the Church.

For me, a worldly example of evil would be represented by Lenin, who was the first to put the evil of Marxism into full operation in creating the Soviet Union, murdering and enslaving untold millions, bringing down the Iron Curtain, setting the first example for the likes of Stalin, Hitler and Mao, and so many other enslaving and mass-murdering Communist or Socialist absolute dictators.

In promising an end to authoritarianism, Marxism brought into being the ultimate worldly authoritarianism; in promising equality through community property, it brought unprecedented poverty and misery; in promising to uplift the lowly, it lowered everyone; in promising utopia, it delivered human deprivation.

It fulfilled the plan of the devil, who was a a tempter, a liar and a murderer from the start. Evil advances only through the lie. The name God gave Himself to Moses was "I Am Who Am". The name Satan gives himself, through the lie, is "I Am Who Am Not", because he pretends to not even exist. There is no God, and there is no devil, he tells his world. And he is believed. He never makes more progress than when men do not believe that he even exists.

Lenin did much to advance Marx's anti-God, anti-faith agenda, and it is still advancing today, under new leadership. But the evil one is behind it all.

Those of you who have been with me for awhile know that I periodically or episodically struggle with the sin of Despair, the opposite of the virtue of Hope. Not so much for me, but for the Church, for America, for Civilization and for global human culture. It always looks like the evil one is gaining ground, everywhere.

In this Year Of Mercy, we are confused and challenged by the seeming universal application of mercy to not only the ignorant, not only the improperly catechized, not only the cynics, not only the mistaken, but even to outright, committed, dedicated, evil.

We have talked about it in Mercy, in Unlimited Mercy, in Mercy War and in Malignant Mercy. Where does Mercy end and condemnation begin? Anywhere? Is there no more adult judgment to be found and exercised in the living of life?

This is not a statement being made, but a question being asked.

Should you surround yourself with bad people? Should your children, and your grandchildren, surround themselves with bad people? Should obviously gross and bad and downright evil behavior be tolerated in your presence, in your home, at your table, in your business, on your street, in your institutions, as a normal part of the living of your life?

We have lost our beloved Mama Angelica, and she is now with our Lord. But in my mind's eye I see her not putting up with evil in her presence. She was ordinary, like us; not lettered, not sophisticated, not highfalutin, not intellectual. But wise, in knowing and fearing and loving the Lord.

The question stands there. I hope you can answer it. Are we to be so merciful that we tolerate and even bless evil? I really need to know.

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Silence in the face of evil is speaking. "We've had enough of exhortations to be silent!
Cry out with a hundred thousand tongues. I see that the world is rotten
because of silence." Saint Catherine of Siena

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"Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, then, is the sin committed by the person who claims to have a 'right' to persist in evil-in any sin at all-and who thus rejects redemption." Pope Saint John Paul the GreatDOMINUM ET VIVIFICANTEM

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If a purposeful violator of the Constitution who is a sworn officer of the governemt is not a domestic enemy of America and a traitor, then
there is no such thing, and the Constitution itself is without meaning,
and America has lost its grounding and its very purpose for being. Anti-American-Court

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The Heresy of Chrislam. Those claiming that the “Allah” of Islam’s Qu’ran and Yahweh or God of both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible are one and the same are missing one glaring point: GOD NEVER CONTRADICTS HIMSELF.

Never be lukewarm.Life itself demands passion.He who is indifferent to God has already forfeited his soul.He who is indifferent to politics has already forfeited his liberty.In America, religion is not mere window dressing and citizenship is not a spectator sport.Do not allow our common destiny as a whole people to just happen without your input. Get in the fight! Engage the Enemy!Seek the Truth; find the Way; live the Life; please God, and live forever.

Enter ye in at the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and
broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in
thereat. How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life:
and few there are that find it! Beware of false prophets, who come to you in
the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.Jesus
Christ; Matt 7:13-15

"We belong to the Church militant; and She is militant because on earth the powers of darkness are ever restless to encompass Her destruction. Not only in the far-off centuries of the early Church, but down through the ages and in this our day, the enemies of God and Christian civilization make bold to attack the Creator’s supreme dominion and sacrosanct human rights.”--Pope Pius XII

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The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who
deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.—Ayn Rand

Atheist Genesis:

In the beginning there was nothing, and nothing happened to nothing.
And then nothing accidentally exploded and created everything.
And then some bits of everything accidentally encountered other bits of everything and formed some new kinds of everything.
And then some bits of everything accidentally arranged themselves into self-replicating bits of everything.
And then some self-replicating bits of everything accidentally arranged themselves into dinosaurs.
See?

“ … for I have sworn upon
the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind
of man.” wrote Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush in
the year of our Lord 1800. The context
involved resistance to any form of Christianity or Deism legally imposing
itself throughout the USA. We must wonder what he might say
about our current government's forced imposition of strict secularism – i.e.,
anti-theism – throughout the USA. I submit that legally enforced secularism of society, like theocracy, like Marxism,
and like Islam, is, precisely, a form of tyranny over the mind of man.Nothing good can come from the religious cleansing of Judaeo-Christian society. Government imposed secularism is just another form of theocracy.